Identifying and Advocating Best Practices in the Criminal Justice System. A Texas-Centric Examination of Current Conditions, Reform Initiatives, and Emerging Issues with a Special Emphasis on Capital Punishment.

Monday, 06 May 2013

Arkansas Update

Arkansas' attorney general asked Gov. Mike Beebe to set execution dates
for seven death row inmates, according to letters obtained Friday by The
Associated Press.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel noted in the letters sent to Beebe late
Thursday that six of the seven inmates are challenging the state's new
lethal injection law and protocol, which calls for Arkansas to use a
drug that has never before been used for lethal injections in the U.S.

However, McDaniel said there aren't any court orders in place preventing executions of those seven prisoners.

And:

Arkansas hasn't put a prisoner to death since 2005, and for now, the
state doesn't have any pending executions. That's expected to change,
though it's not clear when.

Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said Friday that the governor will set
execution dates, despite his misgivings about the death penalty. Beebe, a
Democrat, said earlier this year that he would sign legislation
abolishing capital punishment if lawmakers would send him such a bill.
State Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, proposed just that, but the
measure never made it to the governor's desk.

"Despite anyone's personal feelings about the death penalty itself, it's
a very unique and different situation to be the person that has to sign
that final warrant," DeCample said Friday. "That's what (Beebe's)
facing doing now again and he will do it, but it is not by any means a
pleasant experience."

Six
of the death-row inmates are plaintiffs in a legal challenge of
Arkansas’ new lethal-injection law. The state Supreme Court recently
declared their stays of execution from a previous case challenging
Arkansas’ old lethal-injection procedure were no longer in effect.

In
separate letters to Beebe naming each death-row inmate, McDaniel
requested that the governor set execution dates “because there is
currently no stay of execution in place regarding … conviction, sentence
or the current lethal-injection protocol.”

Beebe spokesman Matt
DeCample said the governor would set the execution dates but would not
set more than one execution on any particular day.

And:

Jeff Rosenzweig, a Little Rock lawyer who filed the suit last week on
the inmates’ behalf, said Friday he would seek to block any execution
dates Beebe sets.

“I’m assuming the governor will set some sort of
dates. If and when he does, we’ll move to stay” pending the outcome of
the legal challenge of the new law, Rosenzweig said.

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The StandDown Texas Project

The StandDown Texas Project was organized in 2000 to advocate a moratorium on executions and a state-sponsored review of Texas' application of the death penalty.
To stand down is to go off duty temporarily, especially to review safety procedures.

Steve Hall

Project Director Steve Hall was chief of staff to the Attorney General of Texas from 1983-1991; he was an administrator of the Texas Resource Center from 1993-1995. He has worked for the U.S. Congress and several Texas legislators. Hall is a former journalist.